Fuzzy Model of Uncertainty in Federated Trust Management

In open network environment, federated trust management has become a cornerstone for information security and privacy. Although people have recognized the importance of privacy and security for their personal information, they remain uncertain when they have to define and enforce their own access control rules or have to handle information from indirect sources. Indirect information and subjective judgment are the major reasons of uncertainty in federated trust management too. This paper introduces fuzzy logic into the definition and evaluation of trust, and then provides a formal representation of fuzzy rules. It offers a set of derivation rules for analyzing and reasoning among fuzzy rules in order to enforce these rules with certain levels of uncertainty. This formal model provides a new method to handle uncertainty in federated trust management